The Right Thing
by Dukes126plus
Summary: It seems to me that we got an obligation to do the right thing. From Undercover Dukes.


This one's from _Undercover Dukes_ where Bo likes the girl (or gives the impression, anyway). But Bo's always easier to deal with when he's the one interested in the girl. Maybe it's precisely because he likes _every_ girl, which means he doesn't like any given one terribly much. Maybe he's just marking time with girls, waiting for Luke to come around?

* * *

The right thing, that's what got them into this mess. They'd walked away from the offer, not once but twice, because it was the right thing to do. Family to take care of and promises to keep and home sweet home, those were the right things.

Until they did another right thing, chasing after a thief, someone sneaking around that naïve little blonde girl's trailer. It was the right thing to eventually track him down, corner him in some weeds. Beating the tar out of him would have been the right thing, too.

Until the wrong thing happened and that petty thief turned into a federal agent that – unbelievably – trusted Bo and Luke Duke. Why he'd pick two country boys to ask the world of was anyone's guess. Stupid was what it was, sending in a couple of amateurs to do a job that had already gotten two well-trained federal agents killed. Asking him and his cousin to take that risk was just plain wrong.

Except there was Luke, pulling him aside, close and confidential: "It seems to me that we got an obligation to do the right thing. Now here we got a chance to put away somebody who's been ruining a lot of lives, maybe people we know."

Leave it to Luke to sacrifice himself for the good of his country, but Bo wasn't so sure of the wisdom of this little caper. "You really think we can do that?"

"He seems to think we can." He, meaning Agent Walden, was standing right over there looking at two young plowboys like they were the last hope in the world to right a terrible wrong. Somewhere between Luke and that look, Bo couldn't say no.

Even if everything about it felt so wrong that they couldn't even look their uncle in the eye. Wrong not to tell him, too, because Daisy came in chirping about just how right they were to walk away from an offer of fifty thousand dollars plus all the purses they brought in. Came in kissing and cooing at them, and didn't appreciate for even a minute learning that she was all wrong about them. Actually felt pretty right when she slapped him on the face (but watching her slam an elbow into Luke's gut felt all wrong, go figure) and reminded them about how wrong it was for them to miss Jesse's birthday.

Wrong as it was, they did the right thing. Went and told J.J. Carver that they'd drive for his little girl, barely past pigtails and substituting a chimp for the doll she ought to be dragging in the dust. Then again, she was old enough to look at him through those low-lidded eyes, mature enough to take the meaning all wrong when he said her father wasn't the only reason he took the job, and then she was smart enough to press her warm breasts up against him in gratitude.

Cold shoulder from Daisy when they went home and they packed a few things (anyone paying attention would notice that the suitcases were small enough that he and Luke couldn't stay gone long) and said their goodbyes. Jesse tried to convince her that her behavior was wrong, but Bo thought she might just be right.

And off they went on a mission to make sure both the girl and her father got the wrong idea about them. The old man was one thing; misleading clueless Mary Beth Carver was just plain wrong.

So was seeing Luke in chief mechanic mode. Never liked his cousin that way, all tensed up, pacing, checking everything twelve times and then thirteen just to be sure Bo wouldn't break his fool neck out there on the track. Which was about the only right part of this whole mess (he was supposed to be interested in the girl, but the car was more appealing): driving the track.

Until Mary Beth cajoled her way into taking up space next to him. Damn it, he didn't want her there in the car with him to begin with; if someone was riding shotgun, it should be Luke. One stupid lap, all she had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride, but Daddy's precious couldn't even do that much right.

Damn it, she was a fool, and he didn't want to be here. Couldn't tell which was more true so he mixed them up, just about quit.

Until Luke put him right: "Hold on a second, she's just a spoiled brat." Yeah, she was that, having a whole wing of a house to herself when Bo and Luke shared a room in a tiny house that would probably fit – lock, stock and front porch – into her closet. Stupid girl with a car she could engineer but couldn't even drive, a monkey that she clearly didn't so much love as dress up in pretty clothes, a store-bought friend and companion (Anna Louise, who had clearly taken a cotton to Luke), and not a lick of sense in her head. "Hey, listen," Luke was trying to get something through all that noise in Bo's head. "We got job to do, and we're gonna do it. We ain't gonna back out." Of course not. Luke wouldn't back out of doing the damned _right thing_ for anyone, not even Bo. "So you just keep your wits about you, just cool down."

It wasn't much. Just a hard finger against his chest, nothing even close to affection. But it was Luke, reminding him that he was right here, this close. Forget the girl, Bo. She don't matter. We're in this together.

Which was why it felt so wrong, come race time, not to hear Luke's voice talking him through it. Shoot, if he wasn't getting nagged about being careful and did the track feel right under his wheels and was he driving the engine too hard and watch that number thirty-six, he's got it in for you, it wasn't hardly much of a NASCAR race at all, just a lonely drive. So he pitted, just to find out where Luke was.

Tried to take it in stride, but it was wrong, all wrong, that Luke had gone back to the Carver residence alone. Too far away, nowhere Bo could see whether he was about to get himself killed like two federal agents had before him.

First thing to go right in a while was the sight of Jesse and Daisy when he made his next pit stop. They hadn't run into Luke either, though, so no matter how wrong it felt, he had to throw Daisy smack into the middle of this thing. "Just go out there and win the race," he told her, leaving out the part about how she'd be doing it to benefit the daughter of a mobster.

Chased off after that wrong feeling, shedding the clothes that felt all wrong against his skin. By the time he was getting close to the Carver mansion, he was just a shucking, jiving country boy in an approximately western shirt, boots and jeans again. That, at least, felt right.

Sneaking around the guards was no different than running from revenuers; he'd known how to be invisible all his life – okay, so he didn't always succeed, he was too dang tall for it, but he knew how. Everything was going approximately right until he saw Luke tied up in that room of the side of Carver's office, and worse than that, Boss and Rosco, were tied up there, too.

Right about then he figured that if they ever got out of this mess, he'd never let Luke talk him into anything this stupid ever again. He planned on telling Luke all about that, too, right after he grabbed him and held on with no intentions of ever letting him go.

All of that had to wait though. He got Luke free easily enough, but there were too many things that needed to be done at once. Luke asked Bo whether he could handle Jojo the half-wit guard alone, and he did the right thing, admitting he could.

Did the rest of the right thing, racing back to the track to protect Daisy. Jojo turned out to be the easy part; after that he had to do the right thing and explain to Mary Beth that he didn't care for her or her pretty car. He was just doing the right thing. Kissed her sad little forehead in an attempt to make her feel halfway right again.

Nothing was really right again until the Duke family left Capitol City all together and crossed back into Hazzard County. He and Luke were finally able to make things right with Jesse and Daisy, and then celebrate the old-timer's birthday the right way: beers all around.

Yeah, it felt good to have done the right thing, felt even better to see how happy it made Luke. His big old grump of a cousin was right there within easy view of all their friends and neighbors, batting balloons around like the kid he hadn't hardly ever let himself be. That there looked right.

And when they got home in the silky dark of evening, and shooed Jesse and Daisy off to bed with promises of taking care of all of the evening chores, that was the right thing to do. When they wound up in the loft instead, doing things that their whole family, church and the all the laws in the state would define as wrong, it was still the single rightest thing he and Luke had done in all their lives.


End file.
